The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor (39 page)

Seymour had taken the time to get to know his keeper during the weeks of his imprisonment, and he now declared to him that ‘if there be any man in all England to accuse me that I should be a false knave to the king or his succession, or to the realm, I will wish no life. For if I had, I thought the stones will rise against me.’
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He was still depressed two days later, refusing his breakfast. That day, however, he at last received the expected visit from the lords, who he was sure – as he informed Ayer – ‘went away pleased with my answer’. Ayer told his prisoner: ‘I am glad My Lord to see you of better cheer and more merry’, to which Seymour replied he would not have eaten had the lords not come, ‘for I should have no stomach’. But now, along with his appetite, he had some hope again.

For another of the Tower’s prisoners, William Sharington, fate appeared to hang in the balance. On 14 February 1549, he was taken to the Guildhall, where he was indicted for treason.
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The authorities had more than enough evidence to bring about his ruin but chose to charge him only with coining £2,000 worth of silver testoons the previous July. He confessed to this readily, but before being returned to the Tower he was sentenced to be hanged drawn and quartered. Yet, even with sentence passed, Sharington remained the Crown’s star witness against Seymour, recalling on 15 February that his former friend had spoken to him of his dislike of the Protector, as well as of his hopes of a marriage between the king and Jane Grey.
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Ambassador Van der Delft, who had finally returned to London, considered that Sharington had been charged very leniently and, although sentenced to death, that he would likely receive a pardon.
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This was Sharington’s reward for testifying against his friend.

After the second week of February, the Council felt that it had sufficient ammunition. Thirty-three charges had been drawn up against Thomas Seymour – and one of the most damning was the claim that he had practised to marry Elizabeth without consent.

*1
Her first husband was a cousin of Elizabeth through the Boleyns, a connection that might have been enough to secure Parry a place in the princess’s household (McIntosh, p. 92). It was a closer relationship than that between Elizabeth and John Astley, whom she referred to as her ‘kinsman’.

*2
By convention, all bills were allowed to pass their first reading, even if their chances of success were slim (BL Harley MS 6807 f. 14v). The fact that this bill reached a second reading says nothing about its popularity in the House.

*3
S. Haynes, p. 95. The cry of ‘false wretch’ is often attributed to Elizabeth, but on a close reading of the source it appears more correctly to have been uttered by Kate when Parry was brought to her in the Tower.

*4
It was certainly Sir Robert Tyrwhitt’s firm belief that there had been collusion between Elizabeth, Kate and Parry – as is clear from their very similar accounts of what happened and the fury of Kate and Elizabeth when they realized Parry had confessed more than was agreed.

The month of February remained bitingly cold for those kept in the Tower. From within his chamber, Thomas Seymour could catch the sounds of life going on around him, but he was immured behind the grey stone walls. Parliament still sat almost daily, but there was one conspicuously empty place. From his cell, Seymour gave voice to his woes by composing poetry, ruminating in verse that ‘God did call me in my pride / lest I should fall and from him slide. / For whom he loves he must correct, / that they may be of his elect’.
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He ended on a loyal note, praying to God that the king would have many years ‘in governing this realm in joy’ before, too, finding bliss in Heaven. There was no word about the Protector. The brothers were entirely estranged.

Princess Elizabeth had continuing miseries of her own to contend with. Following her written deposition, the daily interrogations ceased; but Sir Robert Tyrwhitt was still firmly ensconced at Hatfield. She had a brief respite, though, from the supervision of Lady Tyrwhitt, who crept back to London for a visit in the second week of February. As far as the Council was concerned, this was a dereliction of duty, and they hauled her in on 17 February as soon as they heard ‘lately tell of her being here’.
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She had been instructed to stay at Hatfield, so in leaving she ‘hath not shewed herself so much attendant to her office in this part, as we looked for at her hands’. The lords of the Council spoke to her ‘roundly in that behalf’. However, they still needed her services. She was packed off back to Elizabeth with a letter, informing the princess that since Katherine Ashley – ‘who heretofore hath had the special charge to see to the good education and government of your person’ – had shown herself unfit for the office, Lady Tyrwhitt would be officially appointed in her place. Elizabeth was instructed to ‘accept her [Lady Tyrwhitt’s] service thankfully, and also hear and follow her good advices from time to time, especially in such matters as we have at this time appointed her to move unto you’.

No one can have expected Elizabeth to take the news well. Lady Tyrwhitt enlisted her husband to help break it.
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In reaction, the princess was outraged, declaring that ‘Mistress Ashley was her mistress, and that she had not so demeaned herself, that the Council should now need to put any more mistresses unto her’. Privately, the dour Lady Tyrwhitt, having lived in Catherine’s household and been the queen’s confidante, probably had her own thoughts on this. She retained her composure, however, in the face of Elizabeth’s fury, declaring tartly that ‘seeing she did allow Mistress Ashley to be her mistress, she need not to be ashamed to have any honest woman to be in that place’. Elizabeth could never bear criticism of Kate. Powerless, she rushed to her chamber in tears, weeping loudly through the night, before mournfully moaning all the next day. The loss of the woman who had raised her was a terrible blow.

Elizabeth stopped her crying only late on 18 February 1549, when she received a letter from Somerset. Timidly, with a tear-stained face, she asked Tyrwhitt whether she was best to write to the Protector again. Her keeper replied that if she intended to accede to Somerset’s demands then he ‘thought it well done that she should write’, but that if, as he perceived, she meant to disobey then such a response was inadvisable. On the following day, Tyrwhitt himself wrote to the Protector, telling him that the princess was still indignant at Lady Tyrwhitt’s appointment, fearing that ‘the world would note her to be a great offender, having so hastily a governor appointed to her’. Neither Tyrwhitt nor Somerset, who both thought that she was indeed ‘a great offender’, had any real sympathy for her. Sir Robert was certain that she still hoped ‘to recover her old mistress again’. His own candid opinion (‘if I should say my fantasy’) was that she should have two lady mistresses, not just one. He evidently thought that the task of keeping Elizabeth’s honour protected was a difficult one.

Tyrwhitt had become jaded in his dealings with the obdurate girl, offering advice on what she should write to the Protector but knowing that she would not heed it. Despite this, on 19 February he was able to report that ‘she beginneth now a little to droop’. His wife had told him that this was because she had learned that Seymour’s household had been broken up – a clear sign that he was expected to die. Lady Tyrwhitt informed her husband that even then Elizabeth could not bear to hear Seymour ‘discommended’ in her presence. Any criticism of the Lord Admiral drew a vehement response from the teenager. This surprised Sir Robert, who had previously only seen her rise to such passion to defend Kate Ashley. Elizabeth was far from abandoning Thomas Seymour.

The breaking up of Thomas’s household was indeed ominous – and he may not even have known about it. While Elizabeth contended with domestic dramas at Hatfield, Seymour continued to languish in the Tower. On 18 February, he was interrogated again, once more showing himself uncooperative and refusing to answer all but two questions put to him.
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To the first, he confirmed that he had learned of the Earl of Rutland’s confession through his servant, Pigot – something that must already have been obvious to his examiners. He was then asked for the names of the men with whom he had spoken concerning removing the king from the Protector’s custody. This drew an indignant response, since Seymour denied that this had been his purpose: he ‘did never determine, in all his life, to remove the king out of My Lord Protector’s hands, but by consent of the whole realm’. In refusing to give answers, Seymour may have been hoping to gain time. More likely, he was waiting to see what evidence had been obtained against him. Sir Thomas Smith, the secretary of the Council, diligently wrote up Seymour’s response, but he and his fellow questioners went away unsatisfied.

Elizabeth featured heavily in the questions put to Thomas. Had he talked to anyone of the marriages of the king’s sisters, or received any tokens or letters from them?
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He was asked, too, ‘whether he said at any time, that he knew My Lord Protector’s Grace will commit him to the Tower, if he should marry My Lady Elizabeth?’ and ‘whether he had heard any talk of the surrender of her title to the Crown, to the intent such marriage might be had between them?’ He refused to answer all of these; but Elizabeth must have been in his thoughts as he remained locked away.

Elizabeth continued to struggle at Hatfield. But after her initial grief at losing Kate and acquiring Lady Tyrwhitt, she became calmer. She wrote to apologize to the Protector on 21 February. She had only complained – she insisted – about the change in her lady mistress because she ‘thought the people will say that I deserved through my lewd demeanour to have such a one’. Even at Hatfield, she had heard rumours that horrified her. Although she knew that she could report them to the Council for punishment, ‘which thing, though I can easily do it, I would be loath to do it for because it is mine own cause, and again that should be but a breeding of an evil name of me that I am glad to punish them, and so get the evil will of the people, which thing I would be loath to have’. The princess knew the value of public opinion. Would it instead be possible, she asked, for a proclamation to be issued, making it illegal to spread such scurrilous tales about the king’s sisters? Somerset had already told her that the gossip was her own fault, since she gave ‘folks occasion to think in refusing the good to uphold the evil’. Not so, she countered by letter, she was ‘not of so simple understanding’. Elizabeth wrote in haste, anxious to clear herself with the Protector, but she was also defiant: how dare the son of Sir John Seymour of Wolf Hall criticize her, the daughter of a king?

When she wrote that day, Elizabeth was aware that – at least for her – the danger was over. She had suffered weeks of interrogation and had lost the services of her beloved Kate, but she was otherwise unscathed. Perhaps she hoped that Thomas would similarly clear his name, particularly since his brother had always forgiven him in the past. Indeed, Somerset would, some months later, go so far as to admit to Elizabeth that his brother would have been saved had he given Thomas access to him – but that he had been so persuaded of his guilt that he had dared not.
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Thomas Seymour was undoubtedly guilty of much wrongdoing: the quantities of silver crowns and merchants’ goods seized when Seymour Place was searched testified to this fact. Emperor Charles V was furious when he heard that much silver, ‘no small amount of which once belonged to our subjects’, had been found in his house. As Lord Admiral, Seymour had indeed become England’s ‘chief pirate’ and very nearly caused a serious diplomatic incident. Limping back to London that February, attacked by gout, Van der Delft had immediately invited members of the Council to his house to discuss the restitutions to be made.
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The Imperial ambassador was feeling vindicated, for ten months before he had informed Somerset that many of the goods seized by pirates would indeed be found in Seymour Place.
*1
Paget nodded in agreement, saying of Seymour: ‘He has been a great rascal.’ Candidly, he considered that Thomas had ‘more greed than wit or judgment’.

Paget came together with the rest of his colleagues in the Council chamber at Westminster on 22 February to consider the charges against the fallen Admiral. The list of thirty-three articles that had been drawn up was based largely on the witness statements obtained over the previous few weeks.
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They were highly detailed, covering Seymour’s attempts to be appointed governor of the king, corruption of Edward’s Privy chamber and his boasts of a ‘black Parliament’ in 1547.
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Three articles dealt with Thomas’s attempts to take the king into his own hands, while his promise to marry Edward to Jane Grey was included too. Article 19 dealt with his attempts to marry Elizabeth before his wedding to Catherine, while Articles 20 and 21 concerned his scandalous marriage to the queen. Tellingly, Article 21, which set out the means by which Thomas had won the king’s acceptance of his marriage to Catherine, concluded by saying that ‘it is to be feared, that at this present you did intend to use the same practice in the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace’. Through such a marriage, the Council feared, he meant to murder the king and claim the crown himself.
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His actions at the Bristol mint, together with his piracy, were added for good measure, giving a picture of a dangerous rogue. Nevertheless, there was a question mark hanging over whether these charges amounted to treason, particularly since Seymour had made little headway in achieving his aims.

Once the information against Seymour had been gathered, it was handed to his fellow Privy Councillor Sir Edward Montagu, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
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This thin-lipped, stern-eyed lawyer had decades of experience in the judiciary to call upon. In sifting through the information, he was assisted by his fellow Privy Councillor Thomas Goodrick, Bishop of Ely, and John Gosnold, a lawyer. Both these men quickly came to the uncomfortable conclusion that Seymour’s ‘fault was not treason, but misprision at the uttermost, if it could be proved that Sharington had done it was laid to his charge, and the Admiral should consent unto it’.